Reinforced Horizon budget for 2022 is good news for agrifood

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The European Parliament approved the 2022 budget, giving the EU’s research programme a €100 million boost, much to the relief of agricultural stakeholders, who previously warned of the impact a cut in funding would have for the sector’s sustainability goals.

On Wednesday (24 November), MEPs approved a budget amounting to €169.5 billion in commitment appropriations and €170.6 billion in payment appropriations.

The path to agreeing on the budget was not smooth, with concerns that the Council would not sign off on the Parliament’s more ambitious proposal.

While the final deal was lower than Parliament hoped, one winner of the negotiations was the EU’s research and innovation programme, Horizon Europe.

The programme facilitates collaboration and strengthens the impact of research and innovation in developing, supporting and implementing EU policies while tackling global challenges.

At the beginning of negotiations, Parliament pushed for an extra €305 million on top of the Commission’s proposed budget for the EU’s research programme.

In the end, MEPs convinced member states to allocate a bit less but still an extra €100 million to Horizon Europe. At the same time, a further €50 million has been earmarked for the climate and biodiversity programme LIFE.

This was welcomed by Green MEP Henrike Hahn, who said on Twitter that reaching climate neutrality by 2050 is “only possible” with a robust EU budget that provides more money for climate protection, biodiversity and research and development.

Welcome news for the agricultural sector

This news is crucial for the agricultural sector as it is one of the research programme’s key focus areas, according to Nora Hiller, policy analyst on land use and climate at the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP).

She told EURACTIV that the new ‘missions’ approach of Horizon Europe is designed to bring concrete solutions to some of the sector’s most significant challenges.

“They aim at bringing tangible benefits to people in Europe and engage Europeans in their design, implementation and monitoring,” she explained.

According to Hiller, even though the agreement falls short of the Parliament’s original demands, the outcome for the agricultural sector is “overall positive.”

She also stressed that Horizon Europe plays a “crucial role in achieving systemic change” in the agricultural sector.

Research remains crucial in achieving the EU’s sustainable ambitions as outlined in the EU’s Green Deal and flagship food and farming policy, the Farm to Fork strategy, and the international commitments in the Paris Climate Agreement.

“Research and innovation (R&I) plays a distinct role in these strategies, and particularly in light of the latest IPCC report, the need for innovation, both social and technological, is immense,” she said.

She added that this is especially important given that agriculture is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Therefore, it must do its fair share to contribute to the EU’s climate and environmental targets.

For Hiller, a reduced Horizon Europe budget would have negatively impacted the start of the Horizon Europe missions.

This would have also placed more burden on the EU’s farming subsidy programme, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which was agreed on Tuesday (23 November).

“Cutting EU R&I budget would push member states to compensate with national funding,” she said, adding that, as there are significant discrepancies across the EU on the money spent on research and development (R&D) in agriculture/food, this would have risked increasing them further.

Horizon Europe opens new doors to fund rural digitalisation

The European Union’s main research programme, Horizon Europe, opens new ways to reinforce rural digitalisation and technologies in the agri-food business through international projects and funds beyond those already earmarked in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

Future focus

Looking to the future, IEEP’s Hiller outlined a list of research needs and gaps that the research funding should address.

She highlighted soil degradation, in particular, as a critical area where Horizon Europe research funding could be employed, pointing out that there is a need to understand “complex factors of soil quality and functions”, as well as advancing carbon farming and nutrient loss.

“There is a strong need to find effective ways to preserve soil biodiversity and to promote the application of sustainable management practices,” she pointed out.

The IEEP also pointed to the need to support the protein transition, suggesting resources should be put towards evidence-based evaluations of health and nutritional benefits of low animal protein diets and effective integration of legume crops in farming systems, as well as short food supply chains.

A key focus of the F2F strategy, Hiller said that the health and nutrition aspects of these shorter supply chains was “under-researched” and warranted more attention.

Lastly, she pointed to the need to develop good quality monitoring tools for pests and pesticides, as well as methods to boost natural crop protection through “landscape planning and biocontrol, reducing pest resistance and increasing plant and system resilience.”

[Edited by Gerardo Fortuna/ Alice Taylor]

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